Why Materialist Free Will Skepticism Is Invalid

Universal determinism down to the neural level does not exist and therefore doesn't prohibit free will. Why are so many physicists and other materialists wrong about there being no free will? At the neural molecular level research has shown that brain processes are not deterministic at all. There is a good new article on this in Aeon.

(From https://aeon.co/essays/heres-why-so-many...-free-will):

"Let’s....take the deterministic view seriously. It implies that the words of every book ever written – the Encyclopaedia Britannica, Das Kapital, the Harry Potter series – were encoded into the initial state of the Universe, whatever that was. No logical thinking by a human played a causal role in the specific words of these books: they were determined by physics alone.

It’s unclear how any words could have been encoded into the Universe, which led to apparently random fluctuations at the time when matter and radiation decoupled from each other. How would they have been represented in those fluctuations? It’s virtually impossible that they could have affected the detailed brain-state of the authors when they wrote their books. The issue of quantum uncertainty adds another layer of implausibility to these claims. But let’s set all these major issues aside for now. Let’s suppose it is indeed possible that present-day brain-states are determined by initial conditions in the Universe, because causally deterministic physics underlies all.

The problem then is, how did all those words get there? Was there a demiurge who coded all that stuff into the detailed initial state of the Universe? It’s certainly not there in the Schrödinger equation per se, or in a randomly determined set of fluctuations in the early Universe as is normally envisaged in cosmological studies. By definition, they don’t encode either any detailed information or any logical argumentation.

So how could that data have got there? Not just for one book, but for all the books ever written? Is that really a believable story, or some kind of creationist myth?

Genuine mental functioning and the ability to make decisions in a rational way is a far more persuasive explanation of how books get written. That this is possible is due to the extraordinary hierarchical structure of our brain and its functioning. And that functioning is enabled by downward causation from the psychological to the physical levels, with outcomes at the physics level determined by constraints that change over time. No violation of physical laws need occur.
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If you seriously believe that fundamental forces leave no space for free will, then it’s impossible for us to genuinely make choices as moral beings. We wouldn’t be accountable in any meaningful way for our reactions to global climate change, child trafficking or viral pandemics. The underlying physics would in reality be governing our behaviour, and responsibility wouldn’t enter into the picture.

That’s a devastating conclusion. We can be grateful it’s not true."

It's interesting that the writer dances around but doesn't really address the mystery of exactly how "downward causation from the psychological to the physical levels" can happen, especially without the mind ultimately being nonmaterial. In other words he doesn't want to really engage with the Hard Problem.

Why do these words have to be encoded into the universe? I do not really see any logical problem in assuming that a deterministic universe can produce words or even books. Its the basis of this universe, the physical laws, that lead to words and books in the long run. I have not read the whole article, yet, but his reasoning in the quoted paragraph is quite weak.

I do not know if we are living in a deterministic or indeterministic universe, but I strongly believe that we do not have a free will and I have yet to see someone who can profoundly argue against that notion. So, yes, the conclusion is devastating, but one gets over it with time. No way to change it

Why do these words have to be encoded into the universe? I do not really see any logical problem in assuming that a deterministic universe can produce words or even books. Its the basis of this universe, the physical laws, that lead to words and books in the long run. I have not read the whole article, yet, but his reasoning in the quoted paragraph is quite weak.

I do not know if we are living in a deterministic or indeterministic universe, but I strongly believe that we do not have a free will and I have yet to see someone who can profoundly argue against that notion. So, yes, the conclusion is devastating, but one gets over it with time. No way to change it

How can you possibly claim that myriads of inter-reacting deterministic cause-effect chains can somehow produce the works of Shakespeare and all the other literature of the world? This would require that all this complex specified information was somehow creatively incorporated in the fabric of space-time and matter and energy at the time of the Big Bang. Of course this just pushes the free will and creativity problem back into some sort of transcendental stage. The only way to make logical sense of this claim would be to suppose that our universe is just one of a myriad of other parallel deterministic universes whose elementary particle configuration differs randomly, universe to universe (the so-called multiverse). This notion has fatal problems, however.

How can you possibly claim that myriads of inter-reacting deterministic cause-effect chains can somehow produce the works of Shakespeare and all the other literature of the world? This would require that all this complex specified information was somehow creatively incorporated in the fabric of space-time and matter and energy at the time of the Big Bang. Of course this just pushes the free will and creativity problem back into some sort of transcendental stage. The only way to make logical sense of this claim would be to suppose that our universe is just one of a myriad of other parallel deterministic universes whose elementary particle configuration differs randomly, universe to universe (the so-called multiverse). This notion has fatal problems, however.

As you said earlier, to ignore the hard problem is to miss the point entirely. Explaining how any arrangement of particles can result in subjective feelings is the hard problem and I fail to see how determinism could account for that.

It's interesting that the writer dances around but doesn't really address the mystery of exactly how "downward causation from the psychological to the physical levels" can happen, especially without the mind ultimately being nonmaterial. In other words he doesn't want to really engage with the Hard Problem.

Ellis has written a lot about the subject of physics and consciousness?

He's anti-reductionist and anti-mechanistic, so I think has engaged with the Hard Problem in favor of mental causation?

[Laird]

I have not read the whole article, yet, but his reasoning in the quoted paragraph is quite weak.

Perhaps give the whole article a read then - that paragraph came near the end and was a sort of fail-safe. It doesn't contain his main argument, which came beforehand.

I do not know if we are living in a deterministic or indeterministic universe,\

Are these the only two options? They seem like the same thing to me?

Ellis has written a lot about the subject of physics and consciousness?

He's anti-reductionist and anti-mechanistic, so I think has engaged with the Hard Problem in favor of mental causation?

Yes, he's anti-reductionist materialism. But it appears to me he is very reluctant to acknowledge and engage with the intractable Hard Problem. In the article he just pulls "downward causation" from consciousness to brain neurons/molecular mechanisms out of his hat with no explanation. It looks like he is trying to imply an immaterial Self and consciousness while at the same time placating the materialist paradigm police by also with the other side of his mouth implying it's really a physical mechanism.

Yes, he's anti-reductionist materialism. But it appears to me he is very reluctant to acknowledge and engage with the intractable Hard Problem. In the article he just pulls "downward causation" from consciousness to brain neurons/molecular mechanisms out of his hat with no explanation. It looks like he is trying to imply an immaterial Self and consciousness while at the same time placating the materialist paradigm police by also with the other side of his mouth implying it's really a physical mechanism.

In fairness it's a singular essay, something he notes in the comments discussion. People who've argued for some kind of definitive non-materialist position in Aeon also haven't provided a complete explanation for the relationship between their metaphysical picture [and] the brain.

I think Ellis ultimately arrives at the wrong answer - some kind of emergence - but it would be unfair IMO to say he's not engaged with the Hard Problem. To give two examples of his work ->

The Causal Closure of Physics in Real World Contexts

Emergence in Solid State Physics and Biology

There are also plenty of people, including Idealists, who don't believe in free will so simply noting there is a fundamental consciousness isn't a solution to the issue Ellis is discussing in the essay.

The inability to explain a thing, in language that satisfies everyone, says nothing at all about the nature of the thing itself. This is where the ‘so called’ hard problem falls at the first hurdle. It trades on a category error.